Decent insurance, to cover general skiing and off-piste - any suggestions?

Just re-starting skiing hols after 20years, now with kids. I am lower intermediate, but husband has lots of experience and ability to go off-piste independently. Need insurance to cover this, and was considering InsureandGo, but have since seen rubbish reviews of their service. Any recommendations would be very gratefully received, especially from anyone who has had to make a claim and been treated OK by insurers. With most of these things you can never really tell how good/bad they are until the proverbial hits the fan, and by then it's too late to do anything about it!!

Nitty

We use Dogtag insurance every year, we had to upgrade our insurance when we were in Tignes one year (to go paragliding) and it was done without any hassle.Fortunately we've never had to claim so can't comment on that side.

AND you get to wear a dogtag all week!
http://www.dogtag.co.uk/

I like the dogtag policy for the.. dogtags :lol:

Careful with the cover level you go for.. 'ski touring' isn't covered until the second level.

I considered Dogtag, but went with Direct-Travel as their definition of off piste was less ambiguous.
AFAICT, Dogtag expect you to only ski on marked patrolled itineraries, which is what they define as off piste, or, pay a hefty upgrade for their Extreme package.

The one below the Extreme policy allows ski touring, surely they cannot expect that to be 'in bounds'?!?!

www.snowcard.co.uk

Having done quite a bit of research on this last year, I have found these guys to be by far the best. They are pricy, but you will realise why if you look at terms of coverage and ask the sales staff specific question and then compare with other providers.

They offer a combination of a standard base coverage and then you add on whatever level of activity card you require and for however long. So I have a basic international travel policy with them and have then added a level 4 (i think) card for 3 weeks. This covers me for skiing and downhill mountain biking for any 3 weeks during the year. (I think there are some restrictions on the length of a single trip in common with other insurers.) Other levels can be bought that do not include certain activities.

When researching insurers last year I was shocked at the ambiguity that exists in even the basic holiday insurance. Putting ski insurance aside, most travel insurers expect you to go on holiday and basically just sit in your hotel room for a couple of weeks. Ice skating, swimming, diving, even walking/trekking, are more often than not considered high risk pursuits or there are sufficient ambiguities in the terms that would put you on dodgy ground should you be seriously injured whilst doing anything considered 'active' (what ever that means).

Even for things such as loosing your baggage, most insurers I contacted told me that receipts for all the clothes in your suitcase would be required to substantiate a claim. Who keeps all the receipts for all the clothes that they have ever bought?

Considering skiing specific insurance; most ski policies are standard holiday policies with add on provisions for skiing. The add-on is really just to protect the costs incurred should you have an accident and usually does not consider the additional cost that can be incurred should part of a skiing trip go awry.

This means that should your bags and ski equipment go missing, the standard amounts covered for baggage are usually hopelessly inadequate for the cost of replacing all the gear you would take with you on a skiing trip. Then there is the time between realising your bag is not on the airport carrousel, and the airline actually admitting that it can't find it. You need to hire equipment during this time and this is not covered on most policies.

Snocard has designed the policies to cater for all of these circumstances.

Off-piste skiing is the next factor to consider. The add-on policies range from disallowing it altogether to allowing it only under certain conditions ranging from taking a guide to the "resort deeming that an area is unsafe". This worries me a lot as the definition of off-piste in a European resort is anything outside the markers. So, that well skied 4m wide bit in between two green runs is off-piste as far as the insurer is concerned. This could allow an insurer to refuse payong out should you be injured in that area. Don't even think of asking for a definition of off-piste in North America where the term is redundant and the term "out-of-bounds" is used instead, but appears nowhere in any policy I have seen supposedly covering North America.

One of the levels of activity card you can purchase from Snocard allows you to ski off-piste. The terms contain language that refers to having taken adequate precautions, being prepared, paying attention to conditions, and not acting recklessly. Whilst stressing that I am not a legal expert, it would seem to me that this means that so long as you have paid attention to avalanche bulletins and have gone out adequately equipped (transceivers, shovels, probes and training), then you will be covered.

To summarise, I have the impression that the Snocard policies have been designed by people who have actually been on a winter holiday and understand what it means to ski in the back country, (or off-piste or whatever you want to call it). They have though about all of the circumstances that might arise where you would want insurance to pay out whilst protecting themselves from idiots that might go off-piste without any equipment into conditions that guarantee they will get into trouble.

Luckily I have never needed to claim, but based on my experience with Snocard so far, I highly recommend them.

RossF wrote:The one below the Extreme policy allows ski touring, surely they cannot expect that to be 'in bounds'?!?!

Putting ski touring, or using skins aside, I was a little concerned that if I were skiing off piste under a lift, or between pistes, I would not be covered as it would be neither a piste or an itinerary.

I used to use Snowcard. Last year, I was sent for an MRI scan on 1 knee by a consultant. Like a good little citizen I told Snowcard my insurer, as it's part of the policy requirement. They simply withdrew my cover the same day. So I went hiking in Switzerland anyway, and the net result of the scan was, apparently I'm getting old.

I am definitely going to have to upgrade to Extreme 'just in case'.

B*stards :lol: